Eight Ideas About Delegating to Help Grow Your Business
You can’t do everything by yourself. If you could, your business would be a one-person operation. Trusting enough to delegate responsibilities can be difficult for everybody and almost impossible for some. For those who find it difficult, here are eight things you should know about delegating strategies that just may get you to come around.
Where to Start
Delegating strategies work best when they work their way up the ladder of responsibility. Start with delegating those routine jobs that take up so much of the day, but won’t bring your business crashing down around you if someone messes up.
Someone Will Mess Up
People make mistakes. This is one of the central things to understand about delegating strategies. If you don’t accept that giving someone else a job you usually do is inevitably going to result in a learning curve, you will never be able to delegate. Learn the difference between accidents and utter incompetence.
How Will Delegating Benefit Me
Here is something to remember and expect when you begin to delegate. Starting the process of handing off responsibilities to others inevitably leads to that eureka moment when you realize that had you been unnecessarily taking on all those tasks yourself, you would not have had the time to successfully work out that challenge or come up with the turning point idea.
Delegating Instills Trust and Success in Employees
Keeping everything “safe” and “under your control” sends a message to employees that you don’t trust them. Growth comes when you recognize that an employee needs your trust to develop skills necessary to reach the next level.
Your Way Isn’t the Only Way
Here is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in developing delegating strategies that benefit the company as a whole. It may take time, but the practice of delegating responsibility will reveal one of the most freeing truths in the business world: your way isn’t the only way. Even more freeing: your way may not be the best way.
Avoid Ambiguity, Be Very Clear
Don’t set yourself up for long-term failure by setting up employees for short-term failure. Explain in detail what is expected when you delegate responsibility and allow no ambiguity when it comes to the objective. Anything less may indicate a subconscious desire on your part for the employee to fail, thus validating your expectation that you alone are capable.
Remember Pavlov
Pavlov was the scientist who used a dog, a dinner bowl and a bell to illustrate the power of behavioral conditioning. Incorporate this into your delegating strategies by rewarding successful completion of a delegated task with the proper amount of praise.
Delegate Authority as Well as Responsibility
Ideally, all delegating strategies lead to the same destination. You begin by handing off simple tasks and then move on to more complex responsibilities. Then one day you will be rewarded by actually handing over part of your authority to others. And that’s a good thing!
As a small business owner, delegating will help you grow your business beyond simply trading dollars for hours. Delegating allows you to step back and take a broader view of your businesses, which allows for time to think strategically about where you want to go.
If you’re looking for a business opportunity where you can exercise your delegating skills take a look at our webinar and see if the Blue Coast Savings Consultant opportunity is right for you.
